Sports and community have been intimately connected since the times of ancient Greece and the founding of the Olympic Games. Today, sports are deeply woven into the fabric of American culture and the impact on families is profound. 44 million children, ages 8 to 18, played organized youth sports in the United States in 2008. Sports are also big business. In aggregate, the amount of money spent annually on sports is enormous. Consumers spend $25 billion each year on retail sporting goods and another $26 billion on spectator sports, radio and television broadcast rights, merchandise, sponsorships, and online media rights. In 2007, the total U.S. sports market was $51 Billion, projected to grow at 5.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2011 according to Price Waterhouse Coopers. The global sports market was over $100 Billion in 2007 projected to grow at 5.6% CAGR.
In addition to professional and college sports, youth sports are very popular and many people have some connection to youth sports, whether as a player, parent, or teacher/coach. Youth sports involve millions of children across the U.S. and many more in other countries. Schools, community centers, and other organizations often create leagues and other groups for particular ages, sports, and other demographics.
However, the market is very fragmented by sport, geography, participant age, and vendors. For example, web sites centered around a team do a poor job of connecting a particular child or player with other sports and teams with which the player may be associated. Similarly, although a particular child may have a Facebook or other personal web site, these sites do a poor job of focusing on the child's sports performance and do not necessarily connect the child with other team members, parents, coaches, and so forth. Moreover, when it comes to youth sports in the U.S., no one addresses the three groups that matter most: children, parents, and coaches, in a unified way. The experience for children, parents, and coaches participating in youth sports today is universal, yet largely unshared as a community given the market fragmentation. The goals of youth sports are consistent—children want to play and compete, parents want to watch their children play and develop new skills, and coaches want to teach the children and help them grow while making sports fun and exciting. At the same time, families are busier than ever before and very few of today's technology tools have been applied to help streamline, simplify, and integrate the youth sports experience.